


The Difference Between Two Stories

by JCHaver



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Depressing, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28357164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCHaver/pseuds/JCHaver
Summary: Warning: could be depressing. Has a hopeful ending depending on how you look at it.This story follows what happens in Elysium and the Isles of the Blest from the perspective of another demigod in the future. Percy and Annabeth show up and they are dead since neither of them are immortal. I don't spend a lot of time on the emotional blowback of their deaths but I do (no spoilers) detail how Percy died and him going to the Underworld like regular people usually do. It's philosophical so if you don't want to think skip it.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Kudos: 5





	The Difference Between Two Stories

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this intending you to work out who is narrating for yourself and who certain characters are (again this story makes you think, yay thinking!). However, if you get confused about who is narrating (there are two narrators) I posted them in the notes at the end. If you wish to piece it together for yourself then I wish you luck (though it should be fairly obvious) and I hope you enjoy the story.

It was a cold day in December when the Fates caught up.

My death was a typical one for a demigod: brutal, relatively young, alone. We had taken a back alleyway to avoid the traffic of the holiday seasons and cut back to our apartment a few blocks away. Looking back, I can’t help but think about how cliché my death was. I imagined mortals finding me. They would call the NYPD and a large investigation would take place to find who had so brutally murdered me. They would find my wife and ask her questions, she had been in that alley way when I had been killed after all, but she would lie about events that transpired and deny ever being there. The detectives would never find the murderer and my death would would go down in history as one of the numerous cases never solved. I didn’t feel bad about that if it was the case because what killed me in that alleyway wasn’t even human.

I’ll say that my only real regret was leaving my wife. She had friends who would look after her and morn my death with her. I wasn’t too worried in that respect. But given what we had been through together, not even death could quell the ache I felt in my heart for leaving her.

I ended up in a room I had been in once before. The same steel gray walls and carpet, same pointless and expressionless people sitting on the black leather furniture, the same Muzak played in the back ground. Charon sat at his elevated desk in his Italian suit, still tall and elegant.

Upon my entrance, Charon halted a conversation with a woman who pleaded that she had three children and couldn’t be dead. He gave me a large toothy smile and for a moment his face shimmered into a skeleton. That didn’t frighten me, not this time.

“Figured I would be seeing you sometime soon, godling,” he said. “I figure you know the deal. There is nothing you can say or do to return to the world of the living.”

I gave him a sad nod. This is the way it was, the price of living was death.

“Not to worry,” Charon said, reassuringly. “A forward payment was made. Not often that happens, only for remarkable godlings. In you go.”

He gestured behind him to an elevator which was packing full of the dead. I gave a last look to the people sitting in the lobby. They had been waiting centuries and would probably be waiting centuries more. It was incredible how death restores a youthful selflessness that life had stripped away year by year. I found myself wanting to ask to give up my spot. However, there were so many and death hadn’t taken away my realism.

I stepped onto the platform which I knew would descend me into the Underworld. Charon left his desk as people filed in one after the other. Some desperately tried to shove their way in but Charon pulled them back as he, I have no doubt, had done millions of times. At some point the descending elevator became a small boat and Charon ferried us across the river Styx, as was his job, quietly and smoothly.

When we landed I departed with the rest of the dead souls. I heard Charon call from his boat, “good luck godling.”

I had never felt particularly lucky. Not the first time I was here and certainly not now. I looked around as the dead shuffled along. They didn’t notice the Furies circling overhead under the dark cavern top. They didn’t notice the large three headed dog they were walking up too or the screeching coming from the field of punishment in the distance. They didn’t even flinch when every so often someone was dragged away from the long and fast EZ-Death line with hunting moaning. They either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

I passed the EZ-Death line, the automatic option for the newly deceased, and went straight to the judgment line. It wasn’t long before I was placed before a court.

I recognized faces from history who made up my council of three: George Washington, Minos, and someone I didn’t know. They sat there for hours arguing the good and the bad I had done throughout my life. They judged decisions I had made and questioned why I hadn’t been more active at times. Minos, someone I was not on good terms with, nitpicked every detail of my short life.

Eventually they came to the decision. It was, more or less, what I expected.

“We have made a decision,” George Washington announced. “You lived an extraordinarily good life. The world owes you a debt that they themselves know nothing of. For this, we reward you Elysium.”

Minos scowled. He would have probably liked to see me sent to the Fields of Asphodel for those who didn’t spend their lives on anything. I knew I would make it to Elysium. Most heroes did.

I planned to wait there for my wife. We had made a promise to each other that if one of us died earlier than the other we would wait for each other in Elysium.

I turned to leave through a door that had appeared. Before I had a chance one of my judges, the one I couldn’t recognize, said “wait.”

I stopped and turned to face them.

“We have you recorded here for three lives,” he said. “Since you have achieved Elysium now for a third time you are to be sent to the Isles of the Blest.”

“Could I wait for someone in Elysium first?” I asked. Don’t get me wrong, when I had first laid eyes on the Isles of the Blest I knew that was exactly where I had wanted to end up. Since then, however, I had been to places that made Elysium equally enticing. And I had a promise to keep.

“And shame such a stupendous achievement?” the guard asked. “No, you will go strait to the Isles of the Blest.”

I knew I couldn’t argue. I would just have to have faith that my wife would make it to the Isles of the Blest as well. If there was anyone who could do it, it was her.

I left through the door that would take me to the Isles.

On the other side a couple of skeleton guards awaited to lead me through Elysium to the Isles of the Blest.

A crowd gathered and cheered as we walked down the clean cobblestone streets. I smelled barbecue and heard laughter and every happy memory I had found it’s way back into weary soul. Happy smiles greeted me no matter where I turned like I was in my very own parade. I recognized faces from history and from my own personal life. I had attended many funerals of close friends and been present for their final moments. I knew, without a doubt, they had all ended up here. That thought alone made up for everything bad that had happened in my sad life.

The skeletons led me along until I was standing before large golden gates. I could see a large cobblestone bridge just beyond the gates obscured by a brightly lit fog that covered a large, beautiful lake. The fog hung only on this part of the lake, blocking my view of the Isles of the Blest.

My guard precision assumed places on either side of the gate. A crowed swarmed behind me, blocking the way I had come in from. The large gates opened outward, stirring the nearby mist which crept with daunting beauty towards me.

I stepped forward through the gates. I looked back at the cheering and jubilant crowd as the gate swung closed slowly.

A soft clink sounded as the golden gate closed. The cheer of the crowd had been cut off and mist settled, blocking my view of Elysium. They couldn’t have been more than five feet away but I couldn’t sense them at all.

I looked forward, now alone. I could see the rest of the bridge that extended into a small and beautiful town which was the goal of every living and dead person. It shimmered with unequal beauty and peace and comfort that words couldn’t describe. Even a picture or a look couldn’t portray how wonderful this place was.

Without a second glace back I made my way across the bridge and into my new home where I would await the arrival of my wife: the Isles of the Blest.

* * *

About 400 years later.

I was running. It had been six years since I had learned I was the son of Hermes, god of thieves and getting away with it, and the best I could do was run. I know, humiliating.

You might not believe it, after all colonies were set up on Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn’s moons in our technologically advanced civilization. But it was the truth, Greek and Roman gods still existed. They weren’t just stories of a historic civilization studied in our ancient social civilization class. I wish I had payed attention when they covered Greece and Rome but all I could remember were the names, England, Russia, China, and the United States and all those separate... I think they called them countries. Not that it really mattered.

Any way, I was in the Underworld. The gods shifted positions, again, following civilization and the Underworld had ended up on the edge which happened to be one of Uranus’s moons: Oberon.

If you must ask what I was doing in the Underworld, my dad Hermes sent me on a quest to steal a pomegranate from Persephone's garden. Unfortunately, the skeleton guards had come back. Apparently our distraction wasn’t distracting enough. I had brought a daughter of Hades who shadow traveled our other companion, a daughter of Hebe, to one of Saturn’s moons. She promised to come back to get me but I expected the inter-planetary shadow travel would knock her out. It was much more difficult than inter-continental travel.

That left me, an escape artist, to escape from the Underworld. And I could up with was running.

I tore through the Fields of Asphodel with skeleton soldiers on my heels. I pushed past the dead pointlessly wandering around millions of miles of nothing but open grass field. Hey, whatever floats your boat, am I right?

I had been running for hours when I saw an end to the field. A beautiful town shimmered by a beautiful lake. I didn’t know what awaited me but I was certain it would be better than the never ending grass field. Plus, I was getting tired. I needed to find a place to rest.

I ran into town, down cobblestone streets. It was gorgeous.

“Luke?”

I stopped. I don’t know why. My name wasn’t Luke. I turned towards the origin of the voice.

She was a beautiful woman with long golden blond hair that was wavy and regal and intelligent sharp gray eyes. I wondered if she had been a queen while she was alive. With a start, I realized she was the first dead person who could talk to me and I could understand. She seemed more there than any other dead person I had talked to. She almost seemed alive as she sat on a hill on the town’s border.

She frowned at me, “sorry, I mistook you for someone else.”

“Wait! I need help!” I looked at her pleadingly.

She considered me and looked around. She noticed the skeleton guards fighting their way through the crowd of dead souls, her eyes to full of intelligence.

“Are you still alive?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Are you a demigod?”

I hesitated. That was important information that you don’t tend to share with others. It could get you killed. But I needed help and she was the only one I could ask, “yes.”

She nodded, “This way then.”

I followed her down the winding roads. She led me into a small but cozy house, which I assumed was hers, right as the skeleton guards barreled past us down the street, chattering to each other in confusion as they lost their prey.

I was completely bewildered. I didn’t know her, she didn’t know me. Why was she helping me? The thought of her keeping me here and calling the guards hung in my head, haunting my decision. Not that I had really had a choice.

“It won’t be long before they search door to door,” the woman said. “You still aren’t safe. Don’t get comfortable.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Why what?” She inquired.

“Won’t you get in trouble?” I began with my cascade of questions. “Who are you? Why would you help me?”

She smiled as if I had said something amusing. It made her ten time more beautiful.

“I take it you don’t know where you are?” she asked.

“The Underworld,” I was slightly irritated. I knew where I was. How dare she insinuate I didn’t know where I was.

“No,” she laughed slightly like I was so sure of my answer I didn’t know I didn’t understand her question. “You don’t know where in the Underworld you are.”

I conceded. She was right, I had no idea were I was.

She gave me another smile, “You are in Elysium.”

“Oh… okay,” I said, not sure what that had to do with helping me.

She seemed to give up trying to walk me through it.

“I’m a half-blood,” she explained. “Same as you. And because of that I know you can only survive with help from your fellow demigods and friends, even if they aren’t alive any more.”

“Oh,” I felt bad. I thought she was selling me out, but it was the opposite. She had been a demigod and had lived the same hard life I had. I imagined she probably died from a monster attacking her.

“Yup, trustworthy,” she said as if she had been in the exact situation a hundred times before. “As for if I will get in trouble, well, if I’m caught I will be. Don’t worry though, I’ve gotten away with much worse.”

“Thank you,” I couldn’t think of anything better to say, even though I wished I could.

She looked me right in the eyes, “You’re welcome.”

She said that like a simple thanks was all the payment she needed for helping me. Like she had been robbed of that payment and having it was something special.

I heard some skeletons chattering with the locals a few houses down.

“Follow me,” my host ordered. This time I didn’t doubt her.

I followed her out the back when a thought hit me. Without thinking I asked, “Why are you here?”

Despite my thoughtless, direct, and rude question she was patient with me.

“What do you mean?” She asked. “I’m dead so I’m in the Underworld. I was good during my life so I’m in Elysium. It’s been that way since I was killed in a monster attack in an alleyway, right after… well, that doesn’t matter.”

“Sorry,” I apologized. “I mean why haven’t you chosen rebirth?”

A sad look crossed over her face while we walked down the street. Few people were out.

“I’m waiting for someone.” She said simply.

“How long have you been here for?” I knew it was rude to press into her life, or, uh, death, but I couldn’t help it. Besides, if she didn’t want to talk about it she wouldn’t.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Could have been a few years. Could have been centuries. I can’t be sure.”

“Are you waiting for Luke?” I asked, remember that’s what she called me.

“No, somebody else.”

“Why are you waiting for them?”

“We made a promise to each other.”

“What if they don’t...” I didn’t finish that question. She obviously was waiting, hoping, they would show up. It would be cruel to question if this person would ever make it into Elysium when so few did.

“What if they don’t make it into Elysium?” She finished for me, reading my mind. “They will. 100% certain. If I wasn’t I wouldn’t wait on that hill where I had found you every single day and night.”

“How can you be so sure?” I asked.

“He, the man I’m waiting for, taught me that most things are uncertain,” she explained, though it confused me. “Because of that I tried in many areas of my life I wouldn’t have otherwise. I fixed relationships. One thing has always been certain, though, and that is that he will always come back to me. I know that he will make it back to me here. He is the most amazing person I have ever known or loved. He will come and I will not leave until he does.”

I didn’t ask her any questions after that. I couldn’t bring myself to. That person must be incredibly special if she was willing to wait indefinitely because of a promise, spending ever conscious moment on that hill overlooking a field of nothingness.

She brought me in front of large golden gates. A cobblestone bridge was visible just beyond the gates under a brightly lit fog. I don’t know why but every being of my body, no matter how nice it was over here, ached to go beyond that gate.

“This is as far as I can take you,” the woman said turning so the gates were behind her. “Beyond those gates you will be safe in the Isles of the Blest. The skeletons and anything else dead aren’t allowed in unless they earn it. Since you are a living demigod those rules don’t apply to you.”

“How am I suppose to get in?” I asked.

She gave a small chuckle. “I don’t think that will be a problem for a son of the god of thieves.”

I didn’t remember telling her who my father was but I got the impression that there were many things she knew that I didn’t tell her. She started walking back down the street.

I liked her but I knew it would be pointless to ask her to come along. Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t leave Elysium. Besides she was waiting for someone.

“I hope you find who you’re waiting for,” I shouted after her. She turned around and gave me her best smile yet smiled.

“Thank you,” my mysterious savior said.

“You’re welcome,” I found myself saying. With that she turned around and disappeared from the direction we had come.

I didn’t have to much time to start missing her. As soon as she disappeared the skeletons showed up down the street and chattered in excited voices while pointing at me.

I turned back to the gate. Locked. The skeletons where almost upon me, maybe ten feet away.

I closed my eyes and prayed to my dad to help me get in. I had always had a way with getting in and out of places but this was on a different level. I felt like I was spinning. I didn’t noticed my feet weren’t touching the ground any more until I felt the ground slam into my feet. My knees buckled and my side and head broke the fall.

I felt tired and my head still felt like it was spinning. When I could see semi-strait again I noticed I was on the bridge on the other side of the gate. I couldn’t see the guards or any of the people in Elysium anymore. Just fog.

I looked to the other side of the bridge. There was a gorgeous town on the other side. Elysium paled in comparison. I think the woman had said it was the Isles of the Blest, the ultimate prize and the ultimate afterlife destination, and it didn’t disappoint. No other place deserved the name Isles of the Blest.

I stumbled into town, drained. The town was beautiful. This was the place to be even if you weren’t dead. But I couldn’t sake this feeling in the back that I head even over the bliss emanating from this place. Something was wrong.

I stumbled around for close to an hour when I finally ran into somebody. There was a young man sitting on a dock with his feet dangling in the water. I was so relived to find another person I didn’t even consider hiding.

“Hey!” I yelled while running over. I startled him judging how by far he jumped.

I ran up to him and remembered, in my haste, that he could be dangerous. If he wasn’t dangerous than he probably didn’t understand me. I didn’t like my odds of running into somebody like the woman who had helped me back in Elysium.

“You startled me,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

The words stuck inn my throat. This man was very handsome with the most beautiful sea-green eyes. He had responded to me calling out and he knew I shouldn’t be here. If he wasn’t friendly I was toast.

“I’m a demigod,” I blurted out, remembering the beautiful woman that had asked me that before helping me out. It was probably my best shot to survive this but I wish I had thought it through. I half expected him to get mad and strangle me or something.

Instead he laughed. I stared at him, dumbfounded. I wasn’t expecting that.

“Sorry,” he said, kindheartedly. “You just looked like you hadn’t thought this through. I’ve been in that position.”

I managed a small smile.

“Are you on a quest?” he asked. “Who’s your godly parent?”

It took me a couple of seconds to stop saying “uhhh.”

“My dad is Hermes,” I explained. “He sent me too steal a pomegranate from Persephone's garden.”

I don’t know why but I trusted this guy and wanted to impress him. I was seriously starting to get annoyed with wanting stuff and not knowing why.

“Hermes, huh?” He said. “Him and I go back a ways.”

He knew my dad? Not even I had met him.

“So what are you doing in the Isles of the Blest?” he continued questioning.

“Um, I stole a pomegranate but the guards found out,” I explained. “I came here to lay low before I escape.”

“I see,” the young man said. “Are you doing this quest alone?”

“No, some friends came along but they escaped. I’m the last one,” I said. He asked so many questions. “Why are you asking so many questions?”

He looked momentarily taken aback.

“Oh, yeah, well sorry,” he giddily responded. “It’s been a long time since I have seen anyone. I got excited.”

That set me on guard, the old ‘I haven’t had any visitors in ages’ comment, usually followed by ‘stay with me forever’ right before they grow fangs and try to kill you. Long story short, it usually meant I was about to be in some nasty trouble. Despite that, I decided to press my luck, not that I had much.

“Why can’t you see anyone?” I asked.

“Simple, I’m the only one on the entire Isles of the Blest,” he said like he had accepted the hard truth a long time ago.

“What!?” I responded, a wave of sympathy and confusion overtook my better judgment.

The Isles of the Blest was a utopia set aside for the greatest, most selfless, most perfect people to ever exist. Those that reached the Isles of the Blest had to achieve Elysium three times. It was suppose to be chalk full heroes and good people. At least that’s how the legend went.

“You did look around town, right?” the young man questioned. I did in fact. “I bet you felt like something wasn’t right, like something was missing. That’s because you didn’t see a single person.”

I realized he was right. I had explored the town for an hour and I never saw a single person. With the exception of the man I was talking to it was a ghost town.

“Isn’t there suppose to be all of the best and most amazing heroes here?”

“Ha,” he snorted bitterly. “In a way this place is as much a punishment as anything in the field of punishments. I suppose you might say it’s karma for souls who dare challenges the image of the gods. The gods, who put themselves on moral pedestals but can be just as human as the rest of us.”

“Were you a demigod?” I asked as the thought jumped into my head. To be honest, I didn’t know what he was talking about or what he meant by karma.

“Yeah,” he answered. He smiled at me. “I was a demigod. Us demigods got to stick together, don’t we? Stay here as long as you like. I don’t mind the company. And when you’re ready to leave I won’t stop you.”

“Thank you,” I said.

He looked at me the exact same way the woman back in town looked at me when I had thanked her. “You’re welcome.”

I smiled. I could trust him. I sat with him on the dock.

“So, why are you the only one here?” I asked, unsatisfied with the answer he had given me already.

He sighed, “Not many people make it to Elysium. The judgment system makes it almost impossible for someone who doesn’t do some miraculous heroics in their lives to make it in. I guess, in that respect, demigods are for once at an advantage.”

He looked sad and gazed over the lake as if he could ask it the millions of questions he had in his head and it would tell him the answers he wanted to know. Maybe he didn’t ask those questions for fear of being given the answers he didn’t want to know.

“If it’s that hard to make it into Elysium once, imagine how hard it is to make it into Elysium three times,” he said.

“Are you saying you are the only one to make it into the Isles of the Blest,” I asked, dumbfounded.

“Not quite,” he said with a sad smirk. “There have been others, but not many. I’ve seen two.”

“When did you die?” I asked, I figured he couldn’t tell how much time had passed while dead like the woman.

“In the in the early 2020’s,” he answered. “I have no idea how long ago it was.”

Wow, almost 400 years and only three people had made it to the Isles of the Blest in that time. That was a depressing thought.

“Then what about those people?” I pressed. “Were are they?”

“Gone,” he said.

“You can leave the Isles of the Blest?”

“No, you can’t,” the young dead man answered bitterly. “Once you are in there is no going out.”

“Then where did they go?” I was getting a little annoyed. Couldn’t he just answer the question? “You are already dead so you can’t die.”

He didn’t answer me immediately this time. He looked miserable and bitter staring into the water.

“They faded.” he finally answered. This time I didn’t press even thought I didn’t know what fading was. He took a deep breath before continuing.

“In the Isles of the Blest you can receive anything you want just by wanting it. The only things you can’t to is bring others into the Isles of the Blest and, of course, leave the Isles of the Blest. The Isles are reserved only for those who were reborn three times and achieved Elysium three times. But it isn’t anyway to live, even when you’re dead. At first it’s okay, living alone and isolated, but eventually it wears on you. After some time, all you want is for it to end. As I said, the Isles of the Blest give you anything you want and you fade, right out of existence.”

My blood was running cold despite the perfect temperature and humidity. It was a cruel fate. It hadn’t been designed to be a cruel fate, but no one had bothered to see what it was like there. No one cared that the greatest reward for the most valiant souls that ever existed was actually a curse.

“So why are you still here?” I felt callous asking the beautiful woman the same question with out thinking. This time, it was exactly the right phrasing. “Why haven’t you faded?”

He gave me a big smile.

“I’m waiting for somebody,” he said. “Until I see her again I can’t fade, I don’t want to.”

“I bet you are sure she will make it,” I wasn’t asking a question. He reminded me of the conversation I had had back in Elysium.

“You’re right,” he said with a smile plastered on his face as he overlooked the lake. “After all, we made a promise.”

After that we talked for a while. There was no topic in particular, just idle chit chat. The uneasy feeling I felt when I had first entered town vanished. I wanted to stay there. Because the Isles of the Blest were incredible. I didn’t know if I could force myself to leave when I thought about it. But more than that, the young man was kind and funny. I wanted to stay here and ease his loneliness as he waited.

I knew that we both knew that wasn’t an option. I was still living and needed to return to the living. I was certainly not going to make it to the Isles of the Blest where he belonged if I died either.

“It’s probably time for you to get going,” the man said.

I don’t think if he initiated it I would have ever left. I remembered the stories of the Lotus Eaters, a group of which could enslave people in their own greed, desires, and joy. This place wasn’t any different. If I wanted to rejoin the world of the living I was going to need to leave now or never.

The question at this point was how. I could try coming back the way I came but the skeleton guards might be waiting for me outside. I might not have a choice since it might be the only exist.

The man read my mind as he smiled at me. A little down the wharf a small but sturdy boat appeared.

“You probably won’t make it far out the gate entrance,” he said. “Take that boat. Make sure you don’t touch the water, it could be Styx or Lithe water for all I know. After you make it to land go to the field of punishments. Look for a man named Sisyphus. His punishment is to push a bolder up a hill but he never makes it to the top. He’s known for cheating death, so if anyone knows directions out of the Underworld it’s him. Careful, he will probably try to get you to take his punishment. I’d suggest asking about the Door of Orpheus.”

“Is it okay that I take your boat?” I asked.

“Remember, I get whatever I want here” he said. “Right now I want you to escape on that boat.”

“I don’t know how to thank you,” I said, completely at a loss. The man guided me into the boat.

“You already have,” the young man said as he pushed me off. The currents seemed to listen to him and took me out gently. “Just remember to look out for other half-bloods. You have each other and that’s it. Good luck!”

“Wait!” I called back to the shore getting further and further away. “What’s your name.”

He considered the question for a second like he didn’t have an answer. To be fair it had probably been a while since he had last used his name. Or maybe he was trying to decide since he had three names. Maybe the memories of his past life returned after you achieved the Isles of the Blest.

I was afraid I was too far away for me to hear him when he finally told me his name. He spoke normally but the wind carried it as if he spoke it right next to me: “Percy Jackson.”

Percy Jackson. The name hung in my mind. I remembered the beautiful woman I had met back in Elysium. They were both the same, waiting for someone, both alone in their wait, and certain that they would find the one they were looking for. I held onto the pessimism in my heart that told me they would never see whoever they were waiting for ever again. I guess that was okay, so long as they kept faith.

“Good luck, Percy Jackson!” I shouted to the shore. I could no longer see the young man. I didn’t know if he had heard me until I heard the same clear response.

“Thank you.” Those were the last words he spoke.

“You’re welcome.” I said in a normal voice. I hoped he heard me.

At the time I had forgotten about Percy Jackson, one of the greatest heroes to ever have lived, and Annabeth Chase, another great hero who married Jackson. It wasn’t until I had returned to Camp Half-blood, in great part to Jackson’s advice, that I remembered the tales of them. They stuck with me until my death. What transpired after, well, during my life I learned that both a happy story and a tragedy are never really at their end and the only difference between the two stories is when you stop writing.

**Author's Note:**

> Percy is narrating the first part. The second part is narrated by a son of Hermes in the future.  
> Annabeth is the woman that we meet through our unnamed demigod friend.
> 
> You can decide if when the demigod dies he goes ends up in Elysium and tells Annabeth Percy is waiting for her in the Isles of the Blest, in which case she chooses rebirth and eventually ends up in the Isles of the Blest, or the demigod never makes the connection and forgets and the two of them spend the rest of eternity tragically waiting for each other, separated by a gate.
> 
> (Life philosophy alert which is positive) The title and end of the story is about if you omit the good that comes out of a story after something sad then it will be a tragedy and if you omit the bad that comes out of a story after something happy then it will be a happy ending. Life, however, doesn't omit the good or the bad. In that case you choose if your life had a happy ending or was a tragedy by making the decision to focus on the good or the bad.
> 
> Back to the story, I for one am partial to happy endings but don't mind a good tragedy once in a while. Hoped you liked it.


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